‘Benjamin’—
cyanide under the tongue
tasting like bitter almonds
words scroll off our roles
                                                            Could you
                                                                        be ‘the one’?
onto tablets running low
setting: ‘beneath ruins’—

                       ‘something to consider’
                       in the cotton-mouthed
                                            *
                       limits of discontinued winter
                       limited edition living so

white, snowstormy defiant
primetimed lime’s eating our halos

spotlighting us as we prey dying
fallen stars p(r)a(n)cing silent soundstage

                       debasements as fading suns
                       test patterns, panting for someone
                                            *
                       Lazarus-uplifting, when
                       I—once so desirous of kisses

heavier than grenades—
asking for direction, say
                                                            Are you close?
                                                                        Are you                 going to come?
while opening Windows, closing doors
a perception as painstaking as ours

emerges an unsaved paradox
god films; ‘another snuff in the box’

                       we run in frenetic squalor
                       all our Che Guevara days
                                            *
                       playing rebels glancing above
                       the horizon, replacing the

meaningless weather
we’ve had for so long

with eyes of Promethean fire
burning on, titans bereft of love

                       corrupt like senators
                       mad propagandanimals—
                                            *
                       ‘such damned predators’—
                       we saunter into summer

                                                            I’ve got my Kevlar on
                                                                        again; a little protection
unaware of the bomb, it’s no wonder
we blew it as we blew each other
                                                            In case Cupid takes another shot—
                                                                        firing his angelic,                 d(r)owning me in it
these Prussian blues your
name pain(t)s our behaviour

                       to portray us, slightly
                       unlikely, as unlikeable
                                            *
                       saviours mistaken for
                       terrible imitators of the

one—the father—we ran from
but the damned can’t condemn

where they’ve been
exiled, so we team

                       up and act out what we
                       want to become, uncertain
                                            *
                       any of this means something
                       and whether running

will lead us into or away
from each other, but I say
                                                            ‘At least we’re together’
                                                                        in (t)his wandering